The UK CAA publishes one of its “Safety Sense” leaflets on ditching, available here
They frame it as primarily an issue of maritime survival in northern European waters. The statistics in the opening paragraph are sobering.
A point of question is about tying the painter line of the dinghy. I did a survival course and recall being told to tie the line to the aircraft and that the line had a weak link that would break at a much lower force than the bouyancy of the dinghy as the aircraft sinks. Many GA life rafts are labelled with the instruction to tie the line to the aircraft. This leaflet clearly says don’t do this. Can anyone advise?
Interestingly, on the survival course (in a nice warm indoor pool) we deliberately inflated one raft upside down to try out the righting procedure. I volunteered to try to do it, and failed. More people jumped in to help, and we all failed. We eventually righted the dinghy by swimming to the shallow end and stood on the bottom! On the other hand, climbing in was tough but entirely possible.
Finally, there is a well-known and lengthy review of aviation life rafts from about 15 years ago – see here. It does not view lightweight GA life rafts very favourably.
Do you have any numbers, @JasonC?
The only numbers are generic about fatalities in GA and the PA46. In the most recent MMOPA magazine it points out that engine failures account for 1.5% of aviation fatalities. Excluding fuel exhaustion and deliberately departing with a non airworthy aeroplane this drops to .375%. The reports from PA46 specialists suggest that the PA46 is not out of line with these failure rates leading to fatalities. It is never possible to know failures that do not lead to deaths in any type.
But I agree the engines need more maintenance than normally aspirated engines. I don’t however see that as being any more significant than saying your maintenance costs on a more expensive aircraft are going to be higher.
My experience with the Lycoming was that if looked after it performed well and I had no maintenance to do on it other than oil and filter changes and this was on an engine at around 1000 hours which is when some owners have needed to do some cylinder, turbo or exhaust work.
Do they need more maintenance? Yes. Is it as much as is often implied on here? I don’t believe so.
I was taught (and now teach) to land parallel to the swell unless the wind is strong, in which case land into wind.
Great outcome – well done!
chrisparker wrote:
I was taught (and now teach) to land parallel to the swell unless the wind is strong, in which case land into wind.
Yes, that’s the textbook stuff. And also what one finds in airplane manuals. The problem is that I never saw a definition what “strong wind” exactly means in this context. Nor what “high” waves are supposed to be. In this case, with an estimated one metre wave height and associated wind, both criteria were probably fulfilled, so that poor pilot was entirely on his own… Good outcome, but looking at the violent deceleration he experienced by landing into the swell, from now on my personal strategy will be to ignore the wind and always land parallel to the swell.
BTW: the pilot is 72 years old and BMI not in the green.
Thread drift alert. The Lycoming 540 in its most basic form (250HP normally aspirated), has been known to provide 4,000 trouble free hours on condition. I would overhaul mine at around 2,400 hours, but more to ensure accessories were looked at – the engine still had good compression and oil use was OK. Oil consumption does creep up as they go past their scheduled TBO of 2,000 hours.
@jasonC unfortunately the number of fatalities do not convey the whole story. Arguably a significant portion of accident occupants end up with very serious injuries. Serious enough to ruin their and their’s lives.
On a more practical note, I couldn’t imagine flying with my small kids in a PA46 or P210 over seas. Simply too bad odds.
What do you fly over seas ToniK?
ToniK wrote:
On a more practical note, I couldn’t imagine flying with my small kids in a PA46 or P210 over seas. Simply too bad odds.
Why?
